on to claim my bride....
She had been married just three months, after waiting, or pretending
to wait, for me for nearly ten years! She married a poor lawyer, too,
after persistently refusing me because _I_ was poor. She laughed at
my despair and coldly advised me to find some one else to share my
fortune."

He paused again and wearily passed his hand over his eyes--a familiar
gesture, as Myrtle knew. His voice had grown more and more dismal as
he proceeded, and just now he seemed as desolate and unhappy as when
first they saw him at the Grand Canyon.

"I lived through it somehow," he continued; "but the blow stunned me.
It stuns me yet. Like a wounded beast I slunk away to find my sister,
knowing she would try to comfort me. She was dead. Her daughter
Myrtle, whom I had never seen, had been killed in an automobile
accident. That is what her aunt, a terrible woman named Martha Dean,
told me, although now I know it was a lie, told to cover her own
baseness in sending an unprotected child to the far West to seek an
unknown uncle. I paid Martha Dean back the money she claimed she had
spent for Myrtle's funeral; that was mere robbery, I suppose, but not
to be compared with the crime of her false report. I found myself
bereft of sweetheart, sister--even an unknown niece. Despair claimed
me. I took the first train for the West, dazed and utterly despondent.
Some impulse led me to stop off at the Grand Canyon, and there I saw
the means of ending all my misery. But Myrtle interfered."

Uncle John, now thoroughly interested and sympathetic, leaned over and
said solemnly:

"The hand of God was in that!"

Mr. Jones nodded.

"I am beginning to believe it," he replied. "The girl's face won me
even in that despairing mood. She has Kitty's eyes."

"They are beautiful eyes," said Uncle John, earnestly. "Sir, you have
found in your niece one of the sweetest and most lovely girls that
ever lived. I congratulate you!"

Mr. Jones nodded again. His mood had changed again since they began
to speak of Myrtle. His eyes now glowed with pleasure and pride. He
clasped Mr. Merrick's hand in his own as he said with feeling:

"She has saved me, sir. Even before I knew she was my niece I began to
wonder if it would not pay me to live for her sake. And now--"

"And now you are sure of it," cried Uncle John, emphatically. "But who
is to break the news to Myrtle?"

"No one, just yet," was the reply. "Allow me, sir, if you please, to
keep